Medicine supplying apparatuses used to prepare tablets based on a prescription include Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2003-63503 (see FIG. 1 thereof and FIG. 23 of the subject application) where a plurality of tablet feeders each having a rotor therein are installed at steps along an inner circumference of a tablet accommodating case to selectively supply tablets from the tablet feeders and pack the tablets, and Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2008-162609 (see FIG. 6 thereof) where a plurality of tablet feeders are disposed to have a tray-like shape and tablets are selectively supplied from the tablet feeders based on a prescription like in Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2003-63503.
An example of such a tablet feeder is Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2005-59903 where a rotor is received in a vessel for receiving a plurality of tablets, a plurality of receiving grooves (recessed portions) for receiving tablets are formed at a regular interval along a circumference of a side surface of the rotor, and the tablets drop one by one through a discharge opening from the receiving grooves if the receiving grooves face the discharge opening as the rotor rotates so that the tablets in the vessel can be moved in a rotational direction while being received in the receiving grooves.
Meanwhile, there is an occasion where a tablet corresponding to a dose is a half of the original tablet according to a prescription, in which case the tablet divided into two halves in advance needs to be supplied while being set in a table supplying apparatus.
Examples of such a tablet divider are Japanese Patent Application Publication No. H2-29257 (see FIG. 1) where a tablet is interposed between a pair of belt conveyors to be moved downward and is divided into two halves by a rotary cutter while it is being moved and Japanese Patent Application Publication No. H11-226089 (see FIG. 6) where a tablet is moved into a tube, is stopped by a shutter while being moved, is divided into two halves by a cutter so that the tablet piece corresponding to the lower half drops, the tablet piece corresponding to the upper half remains on the cutter, and the tablet piece corresponding to the upper half is dropped by retrieving the cutter.
When a tablet is fed by such a tablet feeder, some parts of the tablet may be lost or separated into pieces by friction, causing generation of powder. In particular, in the feeder for dividing a tablet, powder is produced when the tablet is divided. If the powder is introduced into a pack for a tablet, this may be unpleasant for some takers of the medicine.
For this reason, technology for raking dust with a brush in the middle of a supply passage from a rotor of a tablet feeder and discharging the raked dust through a discharge opening has been suggested (see claim 3, Paragraph 0024, and FIG. 2 of Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2006-306430).
Further, technology for removing dust attached to a tablet through suctioning or air injection in a tablet manufacturing or inspecting process has been suggested (see the abstracts of Japanese Patent Application Publication Nos. 2008-200234 and 2007-135982).    Patent Document 1: Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2003-63503    Patent Document 2: Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2008-162609    Patent Document 3: Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2005-59903    Patent Document 4: Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. H2-29257    Patent Document 5: Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. H11-226098    Patent Document 6: Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2006-306430    Patent Document 7: Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2008-200234    Patent Document 8: Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2007-135982